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•Jon
Paul Morosi of FOX Sports asked me an interesting question
over the weekend. He noted that the Cardinals were No. 1 in our evaluation of
minor league talent—those rankings are in our current issue and
should go online this week—and wondered how many teams had occupied
the top spot within two years of winning the World Series.

Baseball America has rated farm systems since 1984, and only
three other organizations have pulled off that double. The Blue Jays ranked No.
1 in 1993 after winning a championship in 1992, the Marlins captured the 1997
World Series and the top spot in our ratings in 1998, and the Yankees had the
best farm system in 2000 following titles in 1998 and 1999. The good news for St. Louis is all three of those organizations had
subsequent World Series championships in their near future (Toronto in 1993,
New York in 2000 and Florida in 2003).

•I
had just about completed today's Ask BA when Jon Heyman of CBS Sports reported
that the Brewers will sign Kyle Lohse, pending a physical. Lohse is the last
remaining compensation free agent on the market, and assuming the deal gets
completed, Milwaukee would give up the No. 17 overall pick in
the draft (with a pick value of roughly $2.1 million) and the Cardinals (his
former club) would get the No. 28 choice (worth roughly $1.8 million).

Lohse's
signing would finalize the 2013 draft order, which would look like this:

While spring-training stats should be taken
with a grain of salt, many were impressed with Cardinals righthander Michael
Wacha's performance. Do you believe his stock has increased any as a result,
and do you believe he could force a callup sometime late this year, especially
if an injury gives him an opening? His ETA was given as 2014
on Baseball
America's Top 100
Prospects list.

J.P. Schwartz
Springfield, Ill.

Spring-training stats mean very little for a variety of reasons,
such as small sample sizes and uneven competition. Neverthless, Wacha did open
eyes nine months after the Cardinals made him the 19th overall pick in the 2012
draft. Wacha allowed just one run (unearned), seven hits and one walk while
striking out 15 in 12 innings.

Twelve innings in big league camp don't really affect Wacha's
stock. I was bullish on him to begin with and thought St. Louis got a steal last
June. We ranked Wacha as the eighth-best prospect in the draft in the BA
500 and, given teams' never-quenched thirst for advanced college
pitchers, it stunned me that he lasted 19 selections.

This spring, Wacha showed the same stuff he had at Texas A&M
and in his brief pro debut last summer. He showed a hard sinker that topped out
at 97 mph and a changeup that Cardinals manager Mike Matheny called the best in
his camp. He threw strikes and nothing fazed him. His slider still lags behind
his other two pitches, and that's the lone knock on him.

Though St. Louis may assign Wacha to Triple-A Memphis to start
his first full pro season, he may not get much big league time this year. Even
with Chris Carpenter sidelined, the Cardinals still have a deep rotation with Adam
Wainwright, Lance Lynn, Jaime Garcia, Jake Westbrook and Shelby Miller. Joe
Kelly appears to be next in line for a starting spot. Wacha could make his big
league debut this year, but he probably won't claim a regular role in St. Louis until 2014.

Yankees
righthander Jose Ramirez has looked terrific in spring training. He pitches
with marvelous fluidity and location with a mid-90s fastball, killer changeup
and promising slider. If Baseball America had it to do over again, would he make the
Yankees Top 10 Prospects list? How about the overall Top 100?

Douglas
Carr
Westport, Conn.

The start of this answer is going to sound like the beginning of
the last one. Like Wacha, Ramirez did make a positive impression in big league camp.
He did so by living up to his scouting report rather than making a leap
forward, so for now his stock hasn't changed drastically since we ranked him
16th on our Yankees Top 30 in the
2013 Prospect Handbook.

As Douglas
notes, Ramirez has a 93-97 mph fastball and also can get swings and misses with
his changeup. At the same time, he lacks fastball command and a consistent
breaking ball. He heads into his age-23 season without having pitched above high
Class A or having dominated lower-level hitters.

Ramirez
has one of the best arms in New York's system, but he still has a lot to prove.
I could see him making our Yankees Top 10 after this season, but the Top 100
seems like a stretch. A lot of scouts believe he'll more useful as a reliever
than a starter in the long run, though New York has no plans to move him to the bullpen
yet. He'll open this season at Double-A Trenton.

Given
how much that Tommy John surgery has changed the game, who are the pitchers who
have benefited the most in terms of number of wins following the procedure?

Allen Buller
Portland, Ore.

I'm not sure which is more amazing about Tommy John surgery—that
John is more famous for having his elbow reconstructed than his 288 big league
victories, or that we assume that pitchers will come back as good as new if not
better after the operation. Tommy John surgery was in the news again last
weekend, with the announcement that Padres No. 1 prospect Casey Kelly requires
the procedure.

John won 124 games before Dr. Frank Jobe performed the operation
on his elbow in 1974, and 164 games afterward. That gives him the third-highest
victory total ever after Tommy John surgery, behind David Wells (239) and Kenny
Rogers (219), both of whom had their elbows reconstructed before reaching the
big leagues. Three other pitchers have won 100 games after the operation: Tom
Candiotti (151), A.J. Burnett (107) and Matt Morris (102).